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Emergency Entry Exception Ends Once Crisis Is Over

For the professional edge in your day-to-day practice, rely on the most timely, objective reporting on significant developments, trends, and emerging patterns in criminal law today—Criminal Law...

By Lance J. Rogers

Dec. 31 — Officers who
entered a house without a warrant under the “emergency aid
exception” to the Fourth Amendment exceeded their authority when
they seized and tested the contents of a tequila bottle after they
had already satisfied themselves that the occupant wasn't in
distress, a divided Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Dec.
30.

The ruling means that David J. Kaeppeler will get a
new trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a couple after
serving them liquor that was laced with a “date-rape” drug.

Public Safety Concern

In an opinion by Justice Geraldine S. Hines, the
court upheld the initial warrantless entry of Kaeppeler's home,
saying it was justified because the police had a legitimate concern
about Kaeppler's health and safety.

According to the court, the police had received
reliable information from a local hospital that two people who had
been with Kaeppeler at his home the previous evening had become
seriously ill after the group drank tequila. The police also
learned from a concerned coworker that Kaeppeler had not appeared
at work that day.

That emergency, however, dissipated once the police
arrived at Kaeppeler's home, spoke with him, and persuaded him to
get in an ambulance so he could get “checked out” at the hospital,
the court said.

“From that point on, the police had no further cause
for concern about the defendant's well-being and no public safety
justification to remain in his home,” the court said.

Lack of Ongoing Threat

“We recognize that the role of a police officer
responding to an emergency is not necessarily limited to rendering
aid to an injured person,” the court said. Police who enter a
residence under the emergency exception are also expected to
restore order and prevent injury, it said.

But that's not what happened here, it continued.
Nobody from the hospital asked the police to seize the tequila for
testing and the police, at best, only had a hunch that the bottles
might contain a drug that made the couple ill.

It also pointed out that the police kept the bottles
for approximately four months before sending them to a laboratory
for analysis.

There clearly was no ongoing threat to public
safety, the court said.

In dissent, Justice Robert J. Cordy argued that the
seizure of the tequila bottles was objectively reasonable because
the emergency was ongoing, both for the defendant and the
patients.

“I agree with the motion judge's findings and
conclusion that there were sufficient grounds to believe that the
bottles, from which all three ill individuals had been drinking the
night before, were relevant in addressing what objectively appeared
to be a life-threatening emergency,” Cordy wrote.

The Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office,
Barnstable, Mass., represented the state. Kaeppeler was represented
by Robert L. Sheketoff, Boston.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lance J.
Rogers in Washington at lrogers@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: C.
Reilly Larson at rlarson@bna.com

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